The financial-services industry, particularly the banking industry, suffers from a lack of compatibility between self-service terminals, such as automated teller machines (ATMs), and self-service applications produced by competing vendors. In general, a self-service application in the financial-services industry is a computer-based application that controls the fundamental operation of the self-service terminal (SST), enabling consumers to execute financial transactions on the SST. As a general rule, the self-service applications available in the marketplace are vendor specific, meaning that each will function only with the SST of a particular vendor. For financial-service institutions that purchase SSTs from multiple vendors, self-service applications for those SSTs must also be purchased from multiple vendors as well.
This lack of compatibility also extends to other SST applications, in particular client applications aimed at extending the functionality of the SST. Such client applications include customer relationship management (CRM) applications, which allow the financial institution to mount CRM campaigns toward the user of the SST, and system-management applications, which allow the financial institution to monitor and control the operation of the SST through a simple interface.
FIG. 1 shows a standard architecture for a financial-services self-service terminal (SST) 100, in this case an SST built on the Microsoft Windows NT or XP operating system (OS), the Windows Open Services Architecture (WOSA), and the Extensions for Financial Services (XFS) interface standard, in particular the XFS standard as put forth by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), known as “CEN/XFS.” The SST 100 features a layered architecture in which the Windows OS 110 supports a WOSA/XFS platform 120. A self-service application 130 sits on top of the WOSA/XFS platform 120 and controls interaction between the SST 100 and customers using the SST, primarily through a browser 140 displayed on a monitor within the SST.
The SST 100 often includes one or more client applications 150, such as a CRM application or system-management application, that extend functionality of the SST 100 beyond that offered by the basic self-service application 130. The operation of any client application that resides on the SST in this example is controlled by the self-service application 130.
Traditionally, each client application is designed for operation with only one type of self-service application and thus is packaged by its vendor for sale and for operation with that application. The result is that financial-services institutions are not able to combine the functionality of one vendor's client applications with another vendor's self-service application.